Talk:Franz Mesmer

A brief article on Mesmer
I came across this most helpful, though brief article on Mesmer as part of my research for a performance I do called "A Conversation with Ben" in which I portray Benjamin Franklin. By all accounts Ben was very interested in Mesmer's beliefs but in the end had to concur wit his fellow scientists. Being in his late 70's early 80's I'm sure Ben would have loved to find something to his claims. This article ws helpfu to me. Thanks.

1. Mesmer dissertation: Evidence assembled by Frank A. Pattie suggests that Mesmer plagiarized his dissertation from a work by Richard Mead (1673-1754), an eminent English physician and Newton's friend. Pattie's accusation of plagiarism is definitely overshooting. Firstly, Mesmer referres to Mead and quotes his name in his dissertation. Secondly, projecting modern copyright regulations or citation customs back into the 18th century makes no sense.

2. Mesmer's departing Vienna for Paris: The scandal which followed Mesmer's unsuccessful attempt to treat the blindness of an 18-year-old musician, Maria Theresia Paradis, led him to leave Vienna in 1777. ... Paris soon divided into those who thought he was a charlatan who had been forced to flee from Vienna ... Mesmer left Vienna on Jan. 20th, 1778 (not in 1777!), there has been no 'scandal', nor has Mesmer been 'forced to flee'. He left Vienna as he was searching for a more world-open, progressive society where he hoped to have better chances to bring his ideas to a breakthrough. It should be noted that he left Vienna equipped with a letter of recommendation written by the Austrian Lord Chancellor, Kaunitz, directed to the Austrian Ambassador in France.

85.125.230.190 02:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Glass harmonica by Benjamin Franklin used by Mesmer
Benjamin Franklin invented the glass harmonica. Mesmer used Franklin's invention to mesmerize his patients. I suggest this idea be expanded and added to the article. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 03:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant text removed
I removed the following section of the article - it is not about Mesmer. It was added on 29 June 2007 by an anonymous user: == scientific study of hypnotism, ==
 * Abbé Faria, or Abbé (Abbot) José Custódio de Faria, (May 30, 1746 - September 20, 1819), was a colourful Indo-Portuguese monk who was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following on from the work of Franz Anton Mesmer. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", Faria understood that it worked purely by the power of suggestion. In the early 19th century, Abbé Faria introduced oriental hypnosis to Paris.
 * He was the first to affect a breach in the theory of the "magnetic fluid," to place in relief the importance of suggestion, and to demonstrate the existence of "autosuggestion";

--Daggerstab 10:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Mesmer's Symbols
About Mesmer's involvement with Alchemy. This is the real reason beind the fact that he used the strange signs mentioned in the Trivia section. If he didn't want to be understood, he hadn't never divulged the key to the symbols in the same book. In Mesmer's time Alchemy was fundamental and even Newton wrote more about Alchemy as about physics.

The external links to the Bakken Museum are dead.

Mesmer and Newton
About other aspects of the relationship between the ideas of Mesmer and Newton mentioned in the text, Mesmer, with "Théorie du Monde" tried to offer a complete system explaining the relationships between the different forces of the Nature: gravity, magnetism, and the effect on human body. It is therefore not very exact to says he plagiarized ideas of Newtonian origin. He had his own ideas. This is clearly stated by his contemporaries: the cosmological system of Mesmer was compared and preferred by his partisans to the cosmological system of Newton: read for exemple "Nouvelle Dècouverte sur le magnétisme animal" - lettre d'un partisan zelant de la verité" (1780) - scanned copy in pdf disponible here The writer, with all evidence a very strict friend of Mesmer, says "we are not Newtonian, we are Mesmerian").

Alan Rickman - Mesmer
In the 1994 movie "Mesmer", Alan Rickman's Mesmer cure the blind girl and had a short romantic relationship with her. The girl lost her sight again, but did the real Mesmer actually heal the girl? And is their any evidence towards their relationship? Harrypotterfanfreak (talk) 21:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't confuse fact and fantasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.97.161.153 (talk) 19:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes the girl's sight did improve over some period. The girl's family decided then to become suspicious of mesmer and removed her from his influence. It is believed that the blindness returned. See "Neptune" by Liz Greene which also quotes further sources.

Mesmer family
I looked up information about Mesmer's family because someone questioned the article's accuracy:. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, except that Mesmer's mother seems to have had an alternate name of Maria (besides Ursula). Maybe that was the problem. Anyway, now it's referenced. Further, I inserted, and then removed, a passage that says that Messmer left his wife behind in Vienna when he went to Paris in 1778; this is essentially right and all the Neue Deutsche Biographie says about it, but Mesmer's entry in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Mesmer,_Franz_Anton) claims that Mesmer separated from his wife shortly after marriage because of domestic troubles, so linking his departure (10 years after the marriage) with the separation from his wife may give a wrong impression. Gesellschaftsspiel (talk) 16:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://books.google.it/books?id=yYJNCUyq6FwC and http://books.google.it/books?id=Ke1jd_e7AyYC, among others. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:05, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Question about other studies that Mesmer did
In some of my researches I've come across mentions of Mesmer studying sleepwalkers and curing "night hysteria" with a type of light treatment. Does anyone else have any information on this matter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.59.185.175 (talk) 22:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Look in German language S. 198 (page 198 - 212) Anhang über den Somnambulismus in Karl Christian Wolfart (Hrsg.): Mesmerismus. Oder System der Wechselwirkungen, Theorie und Anwendung des thierischen Magnetismus als die allgemeine Heilkunde zur Erhaltung des Menschen. Mit dem Bildniß des Verfassers und 6 Kupfertafeln. Nikolai, Berlin 1814 Digitalisat   --Roland.h.bueb (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Note
The outlink in footnote 13 is not dead, but I find no mention of Mesmer on the linked page, which may have been changed. rags (talk) 11:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Theory
The use of the term "theory" seems to me to be the popular and unscientific use of the word. Perhaps "Hypothesis" would be more accurate. Perhaps there are other words that could be used to describe the insane ramblings of such a person as Mesmer. I leave it to the usual editors of Wikipedia to clean this silly junk up and make it less laughable. Theory??? It is not theory.

22:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC)22:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.204.160.140 (talk)

Rosicrucianism
He is included in the Rosicrucians category, but that doesn't appear anywhere the article. Are there good sources on his involvement, and which of the many Rosicrucian Orders he may have belonged to? AnandaBliss (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

The Magnetist's Fifth Winter
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155845

This Danish film seems to be about Mesmer's life as well? 2601:5C8:8100:7390:3479:5EE2:8AF9:123A (talk) 22:49, 18 December 2023 (UTC)